[1] Ginestà was born in Toulouse on 29 January 1919, into a working-class leftist family that had emigrated to France from Spain.

Her parents were both tailors: Empar Coloma Chalmeta, from Valencia, and Bruno Ginestà Manubens, from Manresa.

As the war broke out in 1936, she served as a reporter and a translator assisting Mikhail Koltsov, a correspondent of the Soviet newspaper Pravda.

It shows the 17-year-old Ginestà wearing an army uniform and posing with a rifle on the top of the original Hotel Colón, Plaça de Catalunya 9.

The picture later exploded in popularity due to the representation of the Spanish Civil War and is a now universal image of anti-fascism and conflict.

The hotel was destroyed after the war and the site is now occupied by the Banco Español de Crédito building.